I am writing this post to sell you on why you need to switch jobs frequently.
I believe the old days of loyalty to an employer are long gone. It is a career slowing move to stay at one employer for most of your life, and sometimes downright irresponsible. Staying at one company stifles your career growth in more than one way. The longer you stay at a company the more specialized you will get, losing touch with what is going on outside of your role and company. This will make you less employable, stagnate your knowledge growth, and pay. You need to take control of your career and not leave it in the hands of an employer. Nobody can guarantee you lifelong employment, not even your employer. The only person who can do this is you. You need to constantly build up your resume and remain marketable. This is why you need to be constantly evolving and growing your knowledge base.
Why is it bad to stay at the same organization for a long time?
I hinted at this earlier, but to reiterate, staying in one place too long causes you to lose your edge. You lose touch with the outside industry and your sharpness languishes. You become too bogged down in whatever hyper-specific task you are doing at your current job and begin losing sight of the overall goal. The goal is for you to broaden your knowledge base allowing you to climb the corporate ladder faster. There will come a time where you outgrow your role. When this happens you will most likely be up for promotion at your current organization with a 15% raise (if you’re lucky).
However, if you peak outside of your company and browse other employers, you will quickly discover that you can get at least a 25% raise somewhere else. Sometimes your company won’t even bring up a promotion, hoping you do your current role as long as possible without asking for a raise. This keeps them from having to pay you more sooner than they want to, assuming they can afford the raise. A lot of employers will bring up “budget” and “bottom line” excuses to keep your raise as little as possible. To me, the hassle of fighting for a raise at a current employer is just not worth the time.
You need to switch jobs to keep motivation, as well as pay, high.
This ties in to my next point, money. The average raise is a pitiful 3%, according to USA Today. I don’t know about you, but that is a disappointing figure for me. More money should be up there with the main reasons as to why you should constantly change jobs. Some organizations have pay caps on certain roles so they can’t pay you more due to org policy. Some don’t have the budget or simply don’t think you deserve higher pay. Lucky for you, people who switch jobs tend to be compensated much higher. Don’t believe me? According to Forbes, employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less over their lifetime compared to a so-called “job hopper”.
Lastly, another reason for switching jobs often is the motivation factor. There will come a time where you want something more challenging that can’t be found at your current organization. You will want to switch companies to find something that brings you new challenges, new problems to solve, and new people to work with. You will get tired of the slow and steady growth provided to you by your current employer and will want something faster instead. Newer companies tend to be faster growing and allow further growth than a more established company.
I’m not worried about being called a “job hopper” and neither should you by a prospective employer. The employers who can grow you the fastest, value you the most, and give you the best learning opportunities are the ones who value real accomplishments over old-fashioned notions of “loyalty” based on job tenure.
I am a proud job hopper.
I have switched jobs twice now roughly every 2-3 years. This way I have more than doubled my initial salary from the first employer. I have made it a rule of mine to never stay in one place too long. Switching regularly will allow you to climb the income ladder and corporate ladder much faster. This will also open your eyes up to what policies/perks/benefits you like best from experiencing many employers.
Do not get too comfortable in any one position for too long.
Read our previous post here where I discuss what I have in my toolbox to succeed as an engineer.
Best,
– E J
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